College settles Sweet case

Occidental College and three students reached a confidential settlement regarding allegations of sexual assault by former athletic trainer John Sweet, according to Director of Communications Jim Tranquada.

Four students submitted a formal complaint to the school last year accusing Sweet of various degrees of sexual assault, harassment and battery, according to a March 27, 2013 article in The Occidental Weekly. Human Resources Director Richard Ledwin said in the same article thatthe school was investigating the complaints at the time Sweet resigned.

After the publication of the first article, a former student came forward to say that she complained about harassment from Sweet in 2009, which she claims the school handled poorly. Following the 2009 complaint, Sweet attended sexual harassment training. Citing this training and a letter in Sweet’s file, the college has consistently defended its handling of the complaints.

In regards to the settlement, Tranquada said that “the parties have resolved their differences” but would not comment further.

Addendums to Title IX complaint

During the period of the school’s investigation into Sweet, theOxy Sexual Assault Coalition (OSAC) filed a Title IX complaint against the college for the mishandling of sexual assault cases. The original complaint listed 37 complainants.

Throughout the past year, Politics Department Chair Caroline Heldman and other students and faculty have added 15 complainantsto the original for a total of 52, according to Heldman. Each of these complaints have been added individually throughout the past year and describeevents that occured since the original complaint was filed. Most of the added complaints regard cases of retaliation by college officials to survivors of sexual assault or activists.

The Title IX report, filed through the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), is one of three reports upon which the college is waiting. The second report will come from the Department of Education (ED), which oversees the Clery Act. Both the OCR and EDare reviewing the Occidental administration’s response to sexual misconduct.

Lawyers Gina Smith and Leslie Gomez were hired last April to report on Occidental’s sexual misconduct policy. Their report has been delayed numerous times and but will be available later this month, according to Tranquada.

Alumni petition

As a result of the controversies regarding sexual assault and other hot button issues, the newly-formed Occidental College Alumni Action Network (OCAAN) is circulating a petition for change at Occidental. In the petition, OCAAN demands removing various administrators, hiring administrators that fit Occidental’s mission, honoring the employees of the college and adding staff or administrators that are dedicated to increasing diversity on campus.

After the first three days of a week-long circulation, 270 alumni signed the petition; 54 percent of those respondents said that they would like to be more involved. All alumni quoted in this article wish to remain anonymous, because “this is a leaderless movement of alumni. It’s large and it’s growing fast,” as one alumna ‘95 said.

She also said that the alumni, largely, do not want to create another task force to handle these issues.

“Alumni don’t want talk. Alumni are outraged. We want action, and we want it now… We don’t care about money or new buildings. We care about the safety of students on the campus now,” the alumna said.

Other alumni echoed the sentiment.

“The college has been sliding downhill since [President Jonathan Veitch’s] administration started,” an alumnus ‘11said. “My hope is for a complete house-cleaning: new president, new deans, new staff in [Residential Education and Housing Services] and Campus Safety.”

Another alumnus ‘13 said that actions of the administrators in student affairs led to the creation of this petition.

“It has been clear for years that certain administrators within the division of student affairs have not had the best interests of students in mind, and this has become particularly glaring with the mishandling of sexual assault on campus,” he said via email. “With controversy after controversy, news article after news article, [this] should have been fixed by now. Clearly these problems still persist and the energy we see the administration spending on covering things up rather than openly addressing issues is a sign of ineptitude. It is painful to be an alumni and have to constantly defend the school you love so much.”

The ‘11 alumnus agreedthat those in charge of student affairs are the largest problem area in the administration.

“[They] have played the single biggest role in ruining the college experience,” he said. “The ongoing sexual assault wrangling is just the most blatant and egregious part of a much broader dysfunction.”

According to the ’13 alumnus, the administration has not implemented practices that student organizations have worked to create and suggest.

“The administration has not responded to student organizing efforts through [Coalition at Oxy for Diversity and Equity] and OSAC, they have not responded to the Faculty Council’s two votes of no confidence and so we saw an opportunity to mobilize the largest and most powerful constituency: alumni. As alumni we have an interest in the well-being of Occidental students and the reputation of the school, and it is clear that the administration cannot be trusted to make the necessary changes to protect that.”

President of the board of trustees Chris Calkins ‘67, though, believes that the college’s administration has taken steps toward change.

“To address sexual misconduct, we have completely revised policies and procedures; hired a full-time survivor advocate and a full-time Title IX coordinator; established a 24/7 hotline; significantly increased mandatory preventative education programs for all students; and brought in two of the country’s top experts to help evaluate our progress,” Calkins said via email.

Furthermore, he maintains that Veitch and other administrators hold weekly meetings to address the issues of diversity that students present. As a result of these changes, he and the other board members stand behind Veitch and the rest of the administration.

“While effective at conveying a sense of urgency, ultimatums paint people into corners,” Calkins said via email. “They mark the end of a conversation, not participation in one. The board of trustees and I continue to support President Veitch fully in his efforts to address these important issues and to continue to engage in the searching conversations that surround them.”

With all due respect Mr. Calkins, the Alumni aren’t interested in “searching conversations”. This school has been having conversations about sexual assault for how many years now? This is a safety problem that needs to be fixed immediately.

Many of us have had conversations many months ago and were assured by the President that these matters would be taken care of quickly and completely. Steps have been taken – of course – what kind of college would take no steps? But is the campus safe? Does the campus have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual assault?

Oxy’s 35% expulsion rate for those who have been found guilty of rape or sexual assault is unacceptable. An expulsion rate of less than 100% means that perpetrators can continue attending the college, that what they did was excusable, which is it not. This is an urgent safety problem. Would you want perpetrators living with or near your sons and daughters? If not, don’t subject other people’s sons and daughters to this unnecessary risk. Perpetrators deserve to be in prison not in colleges.

The mismanagement here is truly shocking. Why have the staff members who acted inappropriately with survivors not been fired? Some discouraged survivors from calling the police and others intimidated the brave people who stood up for the survivors. The most baffling error in judgment was the assigning of a book report as punishment for a student who was found guilty of sexual assault or rape.

The second most baffling error in judgement is why the President didn’t fire this person immediately. The third most baffling error in judgment is why you, Mr. Calkins, haven’t held the President accountable for not firing people egregiously violating the trust and safety of the students. When you and your Board, as you all like to say, “stand behind your President” who is standing behind the person who assigned book reports you too are standing behind the person who assigned book reports. Is there no accountability at Occidental?

Perhaps if your Board meetings has an open forum portion of time at each of your Board Meetings you would be less isolated from your campus. In case you haven’t noticed, your campus is a mess: the air is thick with animosity, the faculty’s unprecedented no-confidence votes have fallen on deaf ears. Your students are being sexual assaulted, two thirds of convicted perpetrators are free to mingle with students again. Do you not know that serial rapists will not stop?

The truth might be hard but it’s a starting point for improvement so that we can get to a place where everyone can proudly say all perpetrators were expelled and are now in the hands of police and that the college is rid of all administrators who reacted poorly when faced with survivors asking for help.

We have asked for one conversation with Oxy’s President followed by immediate action to end the safety problems by the end of the month. We are meeting with him this Friday and are optimistic that in the meeting we can we can finalize a plan that will fill in all of the safety gaps.

Our point-of-contact called you and is awaiting your call back. We are willing to collaborate with all stakeholders and ask for enough time at your upcoming Board meeting to announce the changes that need to be implemented by the end of this month. You’re all busy, yes we know – as CEOs, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals, we are busy too but are making the students’ safety priority #1.

Why must the policies be implemented so fast? This is an urgent safety issue. If we all collaborate and work hard we can solve this problem this month. Oxy’s new policies will be in place as of April 30, 2014 which will hopefully prevent rapes from happening during the week before and after graduation in May. That’s the reason for the rush.

You may already be aware that the first two weeks of the school year and the end of the school year are the most dangerous times for students in terms of rape. This year the school year will end more safely and the fall will mark the beginning of a new era for Oxy – a safer time that we can all be proud of and a time when Oxy can be referred to as the model for other schools suffering from similar problems and needing fast and decisive leadership to turn them around.

Please feel free to answer each one directly either on this board or directly at [email protected]

We all have the same goals: safety for Oxy students. The solutions that will be implemented this month are long overdue. We will be contacting you to schedule time to finalize our safety plan at the next Board meeting. The plan may change and evolve over time but it must be in place by April 30, 2014.

And for goodness sake, please stop calling it sexual misconduct. Sexual misconduct is when a married person kisses others. Call rape and sexual assault what they are: sex crimes. The policy needs to be renamed Sex Crimes and Sexual Misconduct Policy. Anything less sends the wrong signal to all stakeholders.

We look forward to solving this problem together in the next two weeks.